


bring me home

by partlycharlie



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Animal Shelters, Dogs, Established Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pet Store, a lil bit of angst, cute shit, don't go to stores!!!! adopt a shelter pet 2k18, hurt not as the verb, it's not a store though, like she looks hurt, no dogs were hurt in the making of this fic, one dog is hurt in this fic, only a little bit though it's minor, she has her vaccines and stuff, she's okay though i promise, since when is THAT a tag oh man, that's the closest we'll get i guess, yeah that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 11:49:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17120804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partlycharlie/pseuds/partlycharlie
Summary: "Hello," she says, tilting her head with a friendly smile. "Are you looking for something?"Dan can't speak."Yes, actually," says Phil, thank fuck. "We're looking to adopt a dog."(or: the story with the dogs.)





	bring me home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bonca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonca/gifts).



> Y'ALL. OH. MY. GOD.  
> number one: it's my fucking birthday today sdjfbhsjakbhksaln yahoo i'm writing this on a new mcfuckin computer  
> number two: i DID NOT think i was going to finish this i swear to god  
> number three: thank you SO MUCH to the quick beta job by [rubberbandx](https://rubberbandx.tumblr.com/), literally the only reason i was able to get this done. any remaining mistakes are my fault please let me know if they exist
> 
> hope you enjoy!!!!

"Okay. Okay. Hoo boy. Wow. Okay. Are we doing this? Yeah. Okay. Wait, are you sure we - "

"Dan." After a split second of hesitation, Phil grasps Dan’s hands in his own, gloved fingers interlacing with Dan’s bare ones. Dan startles, though, just a little bit, and he tries not to react. _This is fine_ , he reminded himself. _We’re out - finally, we’re out. Everybody knows now. There’s nothing to be worried about._

He tunes back into the world and suddenly realizes Phil is speaking. "- and when we’re away, maybe Louise could take them for a bit! Or PJ, or - or maybe we could take them with us!"

"Yeah," Dan says, smiling. Phil turns to face him, and Dan watches as his face transforms: the lines around his eyes crinkle just the slightest bit, and his right ear lifts the way it does whenever his cheeks stretch, and his tongue peeks just barely from in between grinning teeth.

_God, my husband is beautiful._

"You weren’t listening, were you." It’s a statement, not a question.

Dan smiles sheepishly, glancing down at his feet. "Sorry, I’m just -" He realizes that he didn’t know how to finish his sentence, but he looks back up at Phil and he knows it didn’t matter. Phil knows what he was trying to say, as always.

"Yeah," he says, squeezing Dan’s hand, "me too."

"You know, I think this'll turn out okay. We'll get - a Shiba Inu, right? And they'll be awesome, no matter what gender, and even if they're a puppy it's fine because we have a relatively large house and we can totally afford to buy puppy pads or whatever else we need to train a puppy, and if anything we can find some sort of puppy trainer. And - and if it's not a puppy, then that's great too! Because, then they'll probably be trained, and then we can just do walks and we won't have to worry about training them or anything like that, and it'll be totally just relaxing..."

"Dan, you're rambling again."

Shit.

"Sorry - sorry, I know, I know. I'm just. Nervous. I also feel like we definitely had this conversation, like, three minutes ago."

"Yeah, we did." Phil stops short in the middle of the sidewalk, and Dan almost trips over himself before his feet remember to stop when he tells them to.

"Why did we just stop?"

Phil points to the awning above their head - Starbucks, Dan realizes. "I figured we could stop for a coffee, maybe calm ourselves down a bit before we head into the shelter?"

"You really think coffee - " Dan quirks a disbelieving eyebrow, then revises his statement. "Phil, we both know coffee makes you jittery. Are you sure that's the best idea?"

"Tea?" Phil tries weakly.

Dan sighs with a tiny smile, but he pushes open the cafe door all the same. "You know, if you wanted a chance to settle down before we go, you could've just told me."

Phil blinks rapidly for a few seconds. "Are you kidding me? You think this break is for me? Dan, have you seen yourself?"

"Yeah, yeah..." Dan grumbles, but doesn't actually respond.

They get into the line and Dan pulls out his phone - yes, it's a bad habit to pull out his phone when he's just feeling bored, but it's a habit he doesn't feel like breaking, okay? - to check his messages.

There's one from Louise - _good luck today!!! let me know when you get the pupper :DDD_ \- and he smiles at it.

"Louise is happy for us," he says, tilting the phone in Phil's direction so that he can get a good look at it.

Phil grins when he sees the text. "I am too."

"Happy for us?" They move up in the line, and Dan starts to scan the pastry box - is that what it's really called? Dan feels like it's probably not, but to be honest he can't be bothered to remember - because he knows Phil is going to want something sweet when it's time for them to order, and Dan wants to be ready. Hmm... maybe the pumpkin muffin? The cheese danish looks pretty good…

"Yeah," Phil replies, knocking Dan out of his line of thought. "I'm excited."

Dan smiles at him. The cashier - pretty, with black braids tinged in green to match her nails - calls out, "Next customer, please!" and they walk up to the counter.

"Hello, how can I help you today?"

Phil smiles down at her - fucking giant that he is - and says, "This one will have a venti caramel macchiato, and I'll have a venti iced chai latte, please, and... oh, I kind of want something to eat..."

Dan cuts him off. "Cheese danish, please." Phil smiles at him gratefully.

"Do you want that warmed up?" the cashier - Alia, Dan notices as he looks - asks them. Phil glances sideways at him at the same time that he does the same, and they both smile at each other.

"Yes, please."

"Okay, that'll be 11 euro sixty, please." Phil fishes out his money and pays, accepting the change and the receipt in the palm of his hand, and they walk off towards the counter to wait for their drinks.

"Hey, Dan?"

Dan glances away from where one of the employees is making their drink (he can see Phil's name drawn in huge letters in Sharpie on the side of the cup) to look at Phil, who suddenly looks almost as anxious as Dan feels. "Yeah?"

"Just - what if they don't have a Shibe? Would you want to come back, or... or what?"

Dan wants to respond right away, but forces himself to take a step back and think about the question. It's obvious, regardless of how Phil may be trying to play it off, that this is important to him, so Dan needs to answer it right.

"Well. I'm not particularly concerned when it comes to what breed of dog we get - I'd be just as happy - well. Maybe not just as happy, but I definitely wouldn't mind having a Great Dane or a poodle or a chihuahua or a mutt, even, if we couldn't get a Shibe." Dan realizes he's rambling.

(Again. It's like some sort of motif or something. God, he really needs to get a grip on that.)

"TL;DR, I'd be fine with any dog. Don't worry about me."

Phil looks distinctly amused, Dan notes, as he takes his cup from the employee who had just yelled his order. "Thanks. Dan, you do realize we're having a verbal conversation, right?  Saying tl;dr doesn't, like, delete the last 30 seconds or anything."

Dan huffs.

"Caramel macchiato for Dan?" the employee calls, and Dan accepts it from his outstretched hand with a nod of thanks.

"Let me live," he says dourly, but Phil just huffs out a laugh and holds open the door for Dan to walk through.

"Christ, but it's cold out here. How are you drinking an iced chai? Who are you? Why?"

Phil just shrugs and takes a long sip of his drink, cheeks hollowing as he sucks through the plastic (eco-friendly his ass, Starbucks) straw. "Dunno. Layers, and gloves, probably," he says pointedly, staring directly at Dan's bare hands.

Dan narrows his eyes and curls protectively around his hot (preciously hot) drink. "Hmm. Okay. Sure. Don't come crying to me when your fingers start freezing off from the cold."

\---

They stand outside of the pet shelter.

"Fuck. We're really doing this, aren't we?"

"Yep," Phil says, grasping Dan's hand in a comforting motion and sweeping his thumb across Dan’s wrist.

"Let's go. Now."

Two things happen in that moment.

One: Dan realizes, very quickly, that he's been betrayed.

Two: Phil uses the hand that's attached to Dan's (purposely, he now knows, which is a betrayal in and of itself) to pull him towards the shelter.

Dan yelps, loudly, and several other people's heads swivel at the sound.

"Wh-what? Why. What. What."

"Because I know you," Phil replies (to that jumble of nonsense, no less), not letting go, "and if I didn't do anything you'd stand there for another fifteen minutes talking yourself in and out of adopting, even though we've been thinking about this for ages. Let's go."

Dan's mouth twists. "I hate it when you're right."

"I know." Phil doesn't stop pulling until they're inside the door.

The little bell at the top of the door jingles when Phil pushes it open, and an elderly East Asian woman pokes her head out from a row of cages.

"Hello," she says, tilting her head with a friendly smile. "Are you looking for something?"

Dan can't speak.

"Yes, actually," says Phil, thank fuck. "We're looking to adopt a dog."

“How lucky!” The woman steps out and Dan smiles reflexively - whether it’s purposeful or not, she has the “harmless grandmother” shtick down pat, and he can feel himself starting to relax just looking at her. “We happen to have a couple of those around here.”

Phil snorts, and his eyes widen, like he wasn’t expecting the noise to come out.

“Anything you’re looking for in particular?” She crosses in front of them and heads to the front desk, settling herself down with a small _oomph!_ (which - same.)

Phil elbows him while she’s looking down at some sort of notepad, and Dan also lets out a little _oomph!_ (ha, see? They’re twins.)

 _What?_ he mouths, glancing back at the woman to make sure she isn’t looking at them.

She isn’t.

Phil points at her and raises his eyebrows, opening and closing his hand a couple of times in mimicry of a mouth talking.

Fuck.

 _Fine,_ he mouths back, rolling his eyes, and straightens up a little. He clears his throat and she looks up from her notepad with a soft smile, one that he can’t help but return. “We were thinking maybe, like - a Shiba Inu? Something like that, though obviously we’d probably be fine with really anything.”

The woman’s mouth twists into a frown. “Hmm. Come with me.”

Phil looks kind of concerned, and Dan shoots the same look back at him - a sort of _do you think we should?_ type thing, complete with the eyebrows and the nose and the mouth (you know, the whole shebang).

Phil shrugs, and they walk.

\---

“This place is way bigger than I thought it was,” Dan whispers out of the corner of his mouth.

They’re following the woman - Ellie, as they learn when Phil asks - down a path that seems more like a maze at this point. Dan got lost after the first four turns and Phil, the poor soul that he is, has almost wandered off in completely the wrong direction at least twice.

Phil shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe she’s the newest Doctor.” Dan smiles against his will and almost crashes into Ellie, who has stopped without warning.

“Here she is,” she says, almost sadly, squatting to be closer to the dog she’s talking about. Dan turns and crouches so that he can look into the cage that she’s pointing back, and -

Shit.

He almost falls on his ass.

The Shiba laying on its (her? That’s what Ellie said, right?) haunches, staring up at Dan with the most pitiful eyes he’d ever seen, is fucking _hideous_.

God, Dan feels like an asshole.

Her hair is matted, one eye looks like it’s sealed shut, and the side of her face with the sealed eye droops a little bit. Dan’s eyebrows crease and he looks a little closer, and - yep, she’s missing a leg; the hind right one is cut off at the base, and all that’s left is a little stump.

Jesus _Christ_ , what happened to her?

“We don’t know, actually.” Shit, did he say that out loud? “Only got her about a week ago, and she showed pretty serious signs of abuse and malnutrition, but other than that - no. I have no idea. One of my volunteer kids found her in an alley down the block, looking even worse, if you can believe it.” From the distance, the sound of a bell echoes, and Ellie perks up a little bit. “Sorry,” she says, standing up and brushing off the imaginary dust from her knees, “I’ve got to go get that.”

“How loud is that fucking bell?” Dan asks after a few seconds, tilting his head back to look at Phil. His skull thumps a little bit against Phil’s thigh, and Phil starts carding his hand through Dan’s hair.

“Too loud, if we can hear it from back here. I swear it didn’t seem that noisy when we walked in…”

Dan sighs. “I don’t know, Phil. She’s… I don’t know.” Phil lets go of his hair - Dan takes a moment to mourn the loss - and pushes Dan to sit up straight, walking to his left to sit down.

His face freezes when he sees her clearly for the first time. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“God, she’s so…” Phil sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. “We could take her, you know.”

“Come on, Phil,” Dan says. "You know we can't. God, I'd love to, but... it's too much. You know we don't have the time to take care of a dog like her."

Phil sighs and nods, pushes himself to his feet right as Ellie rounds the corner in front of them, looking like she already knows what they're thinking.

"It's a no, then, hmm?" she asks, and doesn't seem surprised when Dan shakes his head.

"I'm really sorry," he says, laughing a bit self-deprecatingly, "I just - I don't really think we have the time to put into someone who needs so much help, you know?"

Ellie nods slowly. "No worries - I know it can be tough, to have to spend that much time on an animal who can't help themself, per se."

 _Do you?_ Dan wonders, although he doesn't say anything. They've been here for half an hour, at least, and he's only heard one other person walk in, but Ellie went to get the door by herself. It doesn't seem like there's anybody else working here (at least, not right now), so wouldn't that mean she takes care of all of these animals on her own?

Every day?

Food, water, attention, medical care?

God - that's only four things, but it feels like so - maybe too - much.

"Well!" Ellie claps her hands together and urges Dan off the floor. He gets up, sparing one last glance at the Shibe, and stuffs his hands into his pockets. "You're looking for something a little more low-maintenance, I'm guessing? A little less work, preferably potty-trained, a little calmer?"

Dan’s first instinct is to argue back - to tell her what he had told Phil, that they’d really be fine with anything - but he stops for a second and realizes she’s right. They’ve got a lot going on, what with the move and the interviews (who knew, announcing your gay love for your roommate and fellow Youtuber would get you so much traction?), and it would be easier on the both of them if they could have a dog they didn’t have to worry too much about.

So he says, “Yeah, actually. That’d be nice.”

She nods once, firmly, and beckons them to follow her again. Dan and Phil exchange a look, a sort of _this? again?_ kind of thing, but it's only a stretch of hallway and one turn before they land in front of another cage, this time with a medium sized dog (a corgi, the tiny little blessing) with a short tail that starts wagging ferociously once they catch sight of the group.

“This is Charlie,” Ellie announces, smiling brightly at them. “He’s four years old now - potty trained, otherwise trained, very happy overall but also pretty relaxed. Yeah?”

Phil immediately drops into a squat and threads his fingers through the holes in the cage, grinning when Charlie trots over to nose at his hand. “Hey, Charlie!” Dan can hear the exclamation points in his voice, and he and Ellie share a content smile. “Who’s a good boy? Hmm? You are, aren’t you? Yes, yes you are!”

“So. Yes?” She reaches down to the lock on the cage and pulls out a ring of keys, shuffling through them to find the right one, labeled C3A24.

Dan smiles down at them. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s the one.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments are my lifeblood pls feed my soul
> 
> love u guys <3


End file.
